Robert Diaz, MI: January 2005 Archives

Today, I went to confession. I hadn't gone in over a month, and usually, I try to make it a weekly thing. I feel very relieved to finally have the peace that comes with having my sins absolved. The readings on humility really got to me, and convinced me even more that the time for starting my pro-life group is now. I plan on doing a novena to some saints recognized for the pro-life movement, including St. Gianna Molla, Blessed Margaret of Costello, and of course, Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Anyway, during mass, this lady behind me was talking with her friend during the processional hymn. She wasn't even talking at a whisper, she was talking loudly. I finally got fed up with it, and while I was singing the song, I stuck my hand out in the direction of the yapping, and snapped twice. *SNAP SNAP*

I could feel her dirty looks all the way through mass, but I was charitable enough to offer her the sign of peace. I kept wondering what I would say to her if she confronted me. Thankfully, she didn't, but if she did, I would have simply told her that I was there to pray, and not listen to her talking to her friend.

Love does not mean never having to say you're sorry. It means having to say you're sorry over and over again, in new and different ways, every day, every week, every month, even when you don't want to, every year, until God grants you his mercy and you finally, blissfully die.

I wanted to play this game that I found over at Dappled Things. I've included some links to artists that most people may not be familiar with, and should probably check out.

Here are the rules:

1. Open up the music player on your computer.
2. Set it to play your entire music collection.
3. Hit the "shuffle" command.
4. Tell us the title of the next ten songs that show up (with their musicians), no matter how embarrassing. That's right, no skipping that Carpenters tune that will totally destroy your hip credibility. It's time for total musical honesty.
5. Write it up in your blog or journal and link back to at least a couple of the other sites where you saw this.
6. If you get the same artist twice, you may skip the second (or third, or etc.) occurances. You don't have to, but since randomness could mean you end up with a list of ten song with five artists, you can if you'd like.

And what the heck, here are the next ten:
11. The Pillows, Runners High
12. Wayne Kerr, Yeah Yeah Yeah
13. The Apologist, Catholics in Action
14. Chris Rice, Home Tonight
15. Stephen Lynch, Half A Man (A singing comedian. This is one of his lighter songs that doesn't involve his graphic lyrical imagery and cursing. Don't listen to the samples at work.)
16. Anúna, The Blue Bird
17. The Benjamin Gate, Lift Me Up
18. Monteverdi Choir and John Elliot Gardiner, O Vos Omnes
19. John Williams and the Boston Pops, Imperial March
20. The Innocence Mission, O Lord of Light

The story of the cashier especially gets to me. When I was a cashier, and I came across obviously large families, I always made it a point to say how much I admired the parents, and I always talked to the kids, and told them how lucky and blessed they were to belong to a large family. I told them about all my friends who had come from large families as well, and that I sometimes wished I had more brothers and sisters. One of the remarkable things I noticed was how well behaved the children of larger families were compared to those parents with only one or two kids.

I digress.

Smockmomma asks, "What's wrong with these people?" and honestly, I only have one answer. They're selfish. I think it has less to do with children, and more to do with the prevalent mindset that has been in this country for a very long time. The idea that you don't have to have children, or must only have a small number of children to achieve whatever your goals are in life. I've seen this happen with one of my friends. When I was at college at UNT, there was this absolutely gorgeous girl whom everyone of my friends, including myself wanted to date. However, I was never in any of her classes, and I never was able to have anything more than a couple of lunches with her. After I left for UNT, she got married. I once mentioned when she expected to have children, and she told me that she pretty much never planned on children in the marriage. Now, I wasn't rude, but perhaps I should have been, because the obvious question that came to me was, "Why did you get married in the first place?". Maybe I should have asked that question, but I didn't.

When it comes to cases like that, especially with seemingly good christians, I have to wonder if they're only getting married to have sex. Sure, they're not having sex out of wedlock, but they're totally missing the point of marriage, which is to perpetuate the family of God. What is the point of getting married if you're not going to let that love grow through children? It's utterly selfish.

As far as that cashier goes, if I had been the smockmomma, I would have probably reached across the counter and slapped the taste out of that cashier's mouth for saying something so stupid. Children are not simply black holes in which we throw our money. This is simply, again, a selfish viewpoint that says that children get in the way of our wants. Sacrifice never goes unrewarded. And any mother and father who is keeping themselves open to God's will when it comes to children in their lives, then the reward of good children is merely a glimpse of the good to come to them in the next life.